


wake me up (wake me up inside)

by IceEckos12



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bookclub AU, Gen, jonmartin if you squint, mild spoilers through the end of season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23238187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceEckos12/pseuds/IceEckos12
Summary: “No, I won’t bother you for long,” Elias said politely. “Just checking up on my favorite writer’s club.”“Youronlywriter's club,” Daisy muttered under her breath. Jon bit down on a laugh.“Anyway,” Elias continued smoothly, resting his hands on the back of Basira’s chair while Daisy gave him the most acidic side eye ever known to mankind. “How’s the most recent chapter?”“Very good!” Tim said enthusiastically. “I’m about to get eaten.”“Death is imminent for us all,” Sasha added with gravitas.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 249





	wake me up (wake me up inside)

**Author's Note:**

> i completely forgot that i wrote this lmao

_ Oh, hey. I’ve found...I’ve found that table you were talking about. Don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Just a…basic...optical illusion. Nothing special...just...just a...wait… _

Jon was interrupted by a peanut flying across the table and smacking him in the forehead. The peanut skittered down his face and then disappeared into the murky darkness beneath the polished wooden table, as though sensing the sudden tension and making its escape while it still could. 

Jon sighed, put down the piece of paper he was reading from, and glared across the table. “Yes, Sasha?”

“Sorry about that, Jon,” Sasha said pleasantly. “I just couldn’t help but notice that I was just about to die in your  _ stupid horror fantasy world.” _

“Calling it a ‘stupid horror fantasy world’ is not going to make him want to kill you any less,” Tim pointed out.

Sasha pointed at him and said, “You, shut up.”

“At least you’re not going to be eaten by worms,” Tim added, even as he leaned back in his seat and raised his hands in surrender. 

“I suppose there’s that,” Sasha conceded. “But still, I don’t want to be  _ killed.”  _

Jon heaved a great, put-upon sigh. “I’m sorry, Sasha, but it’s really impossible for me to change the story at this point. You’re just going to have to die.”

Beside him, Martin snickered. Jon glanced at him, confused as to why Martin was laughing. Tim and Basira were smirking, though, and Daisy was doing that thing with her face that  _ might  _ have been a smile if it wasn’t so terrifying. Sasha looked torn between horror and amusement. 

Jon thought about what he’d said for a second. Then he let out another, even  _ more  _ put-upon sigh. “Oh come  _ on,  _ you know I’m talking about my  _ novel,  _ you know I don’t actually want you to—”

“We know, Jon,” Georgie said, patting his arm indulgently. “You just said it so seriously.” 

Jon glowered at her, not for the first time wondering why he continued to come to this stupid writer’s club every week. They threw peanuts at his head and bullied him  _ mercilessly.  _

Well yeah, okay. He knew exactly why he kept coming back to this writer’s club. He’d never met a group of people who were so eager to hear what he had to say, week after week, even though they  _ did  _ insist on reading one of Martin’s inane poems after each chapter. Something about Jon’s writing being ‘too intolerably creepy to be the last thing they all heard before they had to walk home alone in the dark’. 

Even Martin’s poems were growing on him, though. They were almost...charming. 

Almost.

“Actually, while you’ve stopped talking, there’s something I’d like to ask,” Basira interjected. 

“Oh, break time?” Tim asked mildly, getting to his feet. “Sasha, want to come get a snack with me?”

“Sure,” Sasha said, apparently over Jon telling her how much he wanted her dead. “Be back in a second.”

Jon scowled, trying to hide his annoyance. He didn’t like being interrupted in the middle of the reading; it messed with the flow of the story. Sometimes he wondered whether or not it’d be a better idea to publish his novels through a spoken medium rather than on paper. There was something so...satisfying about hearing it aloud. 

“Anyway, I was wondering when Daisy and I were going to make an appearance.” Basira continued. 

Jon opened his mouth to respond, but glanced at Daisy and then shut it again. The first time he and Daisy had met, she had told him that she’d once killed a man with such perfect, dry sincerity that he still wasn’t sure whether or not she was joking. 

“Well,” He said delicately after a moment. “You know, you guys only started coming to the club recently. I’d already written the first book, so it would’ve been difficult to write you in before the start of the second book.”

“So you’ve written us into the second book?” Daisy asked, raising an eyebrow “All good things, I hope.” 

“Yuuuup,” Jon muttered, fidgeting with his papers. 

“How long do you plan to write this for, Jon?” Martin asked curiously. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jon said, now picking at the thick cuff of his jumper. “I mean—I have it sort of planned out up to the third book, but—”

“Don’t listen to him, Martin,” Georgie interrupted, shaking her head with a laugh. “He’s got it planned up to book five. There’s red yarn and push pins all over one wall of his room at home. You’d think he was an obsessed detective rather than a writer.”

Jon ducked his head and braced himself, but—

“Wow,” Martin breathed. “That’s  _ amazing. _ I’m really excited to hear it. _ ”  _

Jon paused for a second, before shaking his head minutely and forcing himself to relax. This was a writer’s club, of  _ course  _ they wouldn’t make fun of him. He didn’t mean to, but sometimes it was hard to forget that all throughout his school years the other children had made fun of him for his love of horror stories and the somewhat unique way he’d kept track of what was going on in his mind. 

So he forced his hands to lay flat on the papers and said, “Don’t get  _ too  _ excited. I can’t promise I’ll live up to your expectations.”

“You will,” Martin said simply, like there was no other alternative. 

Jon was saved from having to respond to  _ that  _ by the return of Sasha and Tim, carrying cups of tea and biscuits between the two of them. Just behind them was a slightly less welcome sight.

“We’re back!” Tim said cheerfully. 

“And we brought a friend,” Sasha added, gesturing to Elias, who smiled and waved at them. 

“Hello Elias,” Jon said coolly, wrinkling his nose. Elias always carried an odd smell around with him. Jon still had no idea what it could be. All he knew was that it smelled foul. 

“Good to see you, Elias,” Georgie said, digging an elbow into Jon’s rib. “Want to sit down and listen to Jon’s story?”

“No, I won’t bother you for long,” Elias said politely. “Just checking up on my favorite writer’s club.”

“Your  _ only  _ writer’s club,” Daisy muttered under her breath. Jon bit down on a laugh. He and Daisy didn’t agree on much, but they  _ did  _ have a mutual distaste for Elias.

“Anyway,” Elias continued smoothly, resting his hands on the back of Basira’s chair while Daisy gave him the most acidic side eye ever known to mankind. “How’s the most recent chapter?”

“Very good!” Tim said enthusiastically. “I’m about to get eaten by  _ worms.”  _

“Death is imminent for us all,” Sasha added with gravitas.

Elias paused for a second at that, his handsome face wrinkled into an expression of polite confusion. Then he shook his head and sighed. “I suppose I shall never understand the things you young people write nowadays.”

And that right there was why Jon disliked Elias. The man was old-fashioned on the best of days, pretentious at his worst _.  _ That, and the first time he and Elias had met, Elias had called his love of horror and monster lore immature. 

“You’re in his story too, you know,” Basira added, hiding a smile behind her hand, because she  _ liked  _ to pretend that she was all straight-laced, but she was actually as much of an agent of chaos as Tim was. 

Predictably, Elias’s eyes widened and he glanced at Jon. Then his horror smoothed into mild amusement, and he said, “Well that’s flattering, I suppose. As long as you haven’t made me the villain.”

Jon started shuffling his papers even harder, avoiding Elias’s gaze. “Uh-huh.”

“Pretty sure you’re the villain,” Daisy said gleefully. 

“Daisy!” Jon gasped. He’d thought they were mutual allies in their dislike for Elias. The  _ betrayal.  _

“If it makes you feel any better,” Martin said diplomatically, “You make a really excellent villain.” 

Jon glanced at Martin, horrified. Martin only shrugged, a satisfied smile playing across his lips. 

“Wonderful.” Elias let out an exasperated sigh. “Jon, if this is about the whole  _ childish  _ thing, then I  _ said  _ that I was sorry—”

“Oh, he doesn’t mean it like that,” Sasha said soothingly. Jon wanted to interrupt that it was  _ very much  _ like that, but he held his tongue. “Sure you won’t sit down with us for a second?”

Luckily, Elias shook his head and pushed away from Basira’s chair. “No, thank you. I have work that I must be getting back to.”

Sasha waited until Elias was fully out of earshot before leaning forward and saying, “Alright. Can we get back to the story? I want to find out whether or not I’m very dead or only sort of  _ mostly  _ dead.”

Jon bit down on a smile at the chorus of agreements from the rest of them. If only they knew. 

“Alright then. Anyway. As I—or Sasha, that is—was saying…”


End file.
